I think you are correct, as long as structure remains inplace and culture is resilient enough to withstand the stress put on the state. Which is why Conservatives and Liberals in today’s U.S.A. are going after structure, at least they are going after how our schools, universities, and other government/private institutions are structured.

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They both believe their cultures are strong enough to withstand the breaking down and apart of the structure that has kept our financial, ecological, and social environments the envy of the world.

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the dynamics of resilience and change of resilience between structure and culture is also one reason the Right is so terrorized by the Left. The Left has no qualms about throwing bombs (literally or figuratively) to tear down structure, because the Left doesn’t really rely on structure, for resiliency, at least not as much as the Right does.

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There is good reason the Republican leadership is wrestling the White House from Trump and only gives the Tea Party lip service. They need structure and fear anything that promises to destroy structure. The Left, not so much.

]]>By: A. E. Clarkhttp://zenpundit.com/?p=53574#comment-159844
Tue, 08 Nov 2016 15:09:36 +0000http://zenpundit.com/?p=53574#comment-159844Very good points, Prof. Morley, and I am grateful for your comment.
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You are right that Thucydides does not distinguish between necessary and sufficient conditions, or at least not in so many words. But he describes this war’s blood-curdling, pry-their-fingers-from-the-sanctuary-altar vendettas as something new in Greek experience. Yet it was for him too obvious to need saying that neither war nor factionalism were new. I think it is reasonable to infer from his presentation that it was the confluence of the two factors (as well as the human drive to acquisition and dominance, which he seems to take as universal) which dissolved all restraint in domestic rivalry. By placing it early in his exposition, Thucydides highlights the fact of invitations to the external powers as a key and unusual factor. For these reasons I don’t think an “and/or” formulation does justice to his thought.
]]>By: Neville Morleyhttp://zenpundit.com/?p=53574#comment-159823
Tue, 08 Nov 2016 07:42:12 +0000http://zenpundit.com/?p=53574#comment-159823This is a fantastic discussion, and I think you’re absolutely right to reject the idea that Thucydides is promoting a single explanation in the way that e.g. Hobbes seems to think he is. I’d like to suggest a slightly different reading, though, building on this. If it’s fair to characterise your argument about the causes/origins of the stasis as ‘not A, not B, but A + B’, then I’d suggest as an alternative ‘A and/or B and/or C’. That is to say, Thucydides’ account is over-determined, with lots of different factors coming together, and he doesn’t do the work of distinguishing between necessary, sufficient and incidental conditions as he’s offering a narrative rather than a normative theory. It’s left to us as readers to think, well, that’s what happened in this specific situation; how far is this a danger in other situations that share some but not necessarily all of these conditions? (Answer: always a risk, human nature being what it is and social bonds being fragile, but never an inevitability). In other words, we can talk about ‘polarisation’ and worry about what’s happening in current politics without implying that everything is about to fall apart. We can even defend Hobbes’ reading as a legitimate inference, given his assumptions, so long as he doesn’t claim that this is Thucydides’ own view.
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